Bag A Peak With Rezdy’s Booking Software

Damian Cerini is the Owner & Founder of Tour de Vines, a tour operation which successfully marries a love of cycling with a love of good food and wine.

Starting off in North-East Victoria back in 2002, Tour de Vines today provides food & wine based cycling tours all across Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. On their guided and self-guided tours, Tour de Vines customers cycle through stunning wine regions, tasting exquisite cellar door and gourmet treats.

We were lucky enough to have a chat with Damian about his experience using Rezdy.

Before you engaged with Rezdy, what was your biggest booking challenge?

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Thinking back to the time you engaged with Rezdy, what was your biggest challenge?

So we had two challenges in terms of our bookings:

One was having a streamlined process for taking bookings and managing bookings; and then,

The second one was the follow-up information flow before our customers experienced one of our tours.

So Rezdy has helped us achieve a more streamlined process for both of those challenges.

What points of frustration did you face before you started to use Rezdy?

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Can you summarise the points of frustration you faced before you started to use Rezdy?

So before using Rezdy, we did have a few major issues in our business:

One was data security. We had a catastrophic failure of our computer systems, which meant an irrecoverable loss of our data, and that was disastrous for us to be honest. So Rezdy has provided a secure place for all of our customer booking information and all of our data, and it complies with all of the privacy laws of course, so that was good.

The other frustration we had was the booking process for our customers. We didn’t really have a streamlined process in terms of taking bookings, and then managing bookings, so Rezdy has provided that for us.

And the third one I suppose was accessing information quickly and easily about tours and our customers. Rezdy enables us to look up customers and look up tours quickly and easily, and source that information.

What were the implications for your business if you hadn’t managed to fix this problem? How serious was it?

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What were the implications for your business if you hadn’t managed to fix this problem?

The issues that we were facing were business critical really, if we didn’t fix these issues we may not still be around today. The issues were around protecting our data, so our booking information needed to be secure, which it wasn’t at the time, so Rezdy solved that issue for us and that’s obviously business critical.

Perhaps more important was the perception of our customers about us. We were having problems accessing booking information, so if a customer called us and asked us about their tour, it took us time to look it up. We possibly came across as clumsy and disorganised, and that perception rubs off into a negative perception of us. Rezdy has enabled us to look up data quickly and easily about customers and about tours, and so that’s created a much stronger, more organised perception for our customers.

“Rezdy has enabled us to look up data quickly and easily… that’s created a much stronger, more organised perception for our customers.”

Did you try to fix the problem in other ways before you settled on using Rezdy?

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Did you try to fix the problem in other ways before you settled on using Rezdy?

We did, the usual methods of spreadsheets and word documents and emails, but we just found it was messy, accessing data was difficult, and of course data security – if we had a failure of any of our computer systems, we would lose everything. So none of those really solved our core frustrations before we took on Rezdy.

Once you bought Rezdy, what were your next steps? How did you get it implemented?

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Once you bought Rezdy, how did you get it implemented?

It was really easy to be honest. We had already signed up for the trial, so we had entered a large amount of data regarding our tours already. So we had the information in there, and really it was just a matter of plugging it into our website to make live bookings available, and then using all the other plugins available on Rezdy – like the social media plugin, and advanced emails. We basically just turned them on, implemented them – which was quick and easy – and we were up and running.

What are the top features you love about Rezdy?

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What are the top features you like about Rezdy?

I suppose there are a couple of things that were good for us:

Firstly, it was the calendar feature, which means we quickly and easily see what tours were coming up, availability, who’s on them, etc, so that was good.

We love the manifest. Our business employs guides all around the world, so we need to be quickly able to provide a manifest to the guides pre-tour, and Rezdy enables us to do that.

And the third and perhaps obvious one is online bookings. Customers can book directly with us, straight into Rezdy, make a payment, and it’s all quick and easy.

Did you experience any direct business benefits you can share with us?

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Did you experience any direct business benefits you can share with us?

Absolutely. Rezdy has delivered a couple of benefits for our business:

I suppose the most important is the saving of time – in dealing with customers, in taking bookings, following up with customers, automated emails – it’s all quick and easy through Rezdy, so it’s saved our business a lot of time and resource.

We’re better organised, so we know when our tours are departing, we know who’s on what tour, so that information is quick and easy to access.

And our booking data – our business critical information – is secure, so that’s a huge business benefit for us.

“…it’s all quick and easy through Rezdy, so it’s saved our business a lot of time and resource.”

What would you say to other businesses in your sector thinking of trying Rezdy?

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What would you say to other businesses in your sector thinking of trying Rezdy?

If you’re shopping around for an online booking system and a tour management tool, then just do the trial. Contact Rezdy, do the trial, it’s free, it’s very easy to do, take the step and I think you’ll find it’s worthwhile.

What’s the single biggest reason you would recommend Rezdy?

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What is the single biggest reason you would recommend Rezdy?

The number one reason I think that businesses should use Rezdy is the ability to take online bookings. In the modern era, if you can’t take an online booking you’re really struggling, so I think that’s a pretty good reason to take it up.

Have you found working with the team at Rezdy to be a positive experience?

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Have you found working with the team at Rezdy to be a positive experience?

Yes, absolutely. All the staff at Rezdy are terrific, the support is ordinarily quite fast and responsive, and we haven’t had any issues in dealing with Rezdy.